On Feb 4, 2004, at 4:24 PM, Philip Hart wrote: > Excellent questions. Re diseases, I believe we have no evidence, but > I'd > be inclined to think the J didn't mess with the basic cellular > mechanics > to the point that viruses couldn't learn to pass to Ds from Es, given > that > they live in close proximity (v. Guns etc for more). That could be answer enough. Even if all the reasoning below were circumvented, an invading army could be put down by one of the plagues. Except: On Feb 4, 2004, at 4:43 PM, lazarus wrote: > I can't recall and thus don't have any textev, but I distinctly got > the impression that the various plagues' coming from the East would > have to mean they were transmitted from Easterner to Dragaeran. How > else would the plagues be hanging around waiting to sweep west? If the plagues come _from_ the East and only hit Dragaera because its various protections have failed, then that would be a wonderful precursor to invasion - even invasion embodied simply by natural expansion to fill the voids left behind by dead outlying Dragaeran communities. > Re an Eastern > invasion, remember that the Fenarian treaty might still be remembered, > that 200k years of bad stuff coming from the West might be remembered, For both of those, if the Easterners are like us (i.e. terrestrial humans) 100+ years is usually enough for great-great grandchildren to a) forget the dangers and sins of the past, and b) believe that the deals made generations before they were born shouldn't apply to them. This goes into one of the other things I've wondered allot about in the relationship between Dragaerans and Easterners in general, and Vlad and his friends in particular. For, for example Morrolan, his time with Vlad is a small fraction of his life span - albeit an event-filled fraction. The "long view" of Dragaerans must be hugely different from the erstwhile long view of Easterners. I note in PotD, at least, that there's allot of 'slowness' - looking out windows or dining for hours, etc, and I suspect it's not just Paarfi being flowery. > that it's not simple to cross the mountains, that the pre-Disaster > Empire > wasn't that dependent on battle magic (as portrayed by Paarfi, anyway - > why the east edge of the Pepperfields wasn't just mined or walled off > by > sorcery is unclear to me - SKZB arranging that in most battles the > wizards > would cancel while the grunts fought), The mountains, I'll give you. The Empire did rely on organized military and chain of command, however, which does not exist in large quantities during the Interregnum. Perhaps the Easterners are technologically or politically behind the Dragaerans in general, but if they are _not_ then some Eastern Khan might just cast his eyes over the mountains to avenge that 200k years of bad stuff - and get some new real estate. > that the Gods have influence on both sides, Deus-ex _will_ always work, of course. > that there might well be no pressure in the East to launch an > invasion, that the western landscape is rather > inhospitable, that it takes a long time to conquer a continent, These all make sense to me. > and that > any armed Dragaeran would be a formidable foe to the average lowtech > Easterner. If the average Easterner is low tech, and if most battles have to be on the order of 1-on-1, I'll agree. In plurality, I think you've convinced me. Any counter arguments on my part would, I think, require knowing more about the East than has been revealed so far. Hi, Large Bronze Apeman (Noam Raphael Izenberg - I knew she was trouble from the start. She always fell for the tall, dark, and hairy types)